The Inclusion of Nonsafety Criteria within the Regulatory Framework of Agricultural Biotechnology: Exploring Factors that Are Likely to Influence Policy Transfer

Policy makers of various countries are exposed to critiques that call for the consideration of issues that transcend human, animal, and environmental safety concerns when assessing agricultural biotechnology products. While some jurisdictions have decided to broaden the scope of their approval process for genetically modified (GM) foods, this paper analyzes legal, political, and economic factors that can influence the transfer of these initiatives. Drawing on mechanisms presented in the policy transfer literature, this article examines their mixed effects pertaining to the regulation of biotechnology. Although the mechanisms of competition and coercion do not preclude such a possibility, one must admit that they do not create any incentives for policy makers to include nonsafety criteria within biotechnology regulations. By contrast, to varying degrees, the mechanisms of mimicry and learning can foster the transfer of such a broadened scope that allows a better assessment of GM foods' social acceptability.     

“Conservation” as a Catalyst for Conflict: Considering Stakeholder Understanding in Policy Making

Stakeholder negotiation processes are increasingly used in environmental management, but are often difficult due to values differences among stakeholders. These values can be reflected in the language used by stakeholders, which may lead to conflict in negotiation processes. This study investigated whether there are widespread differences among Colorado water stakeholders in how they define the term “conservation,” a key value and policy term, and whether this leads to conflict in negotiations. Using multiple methods in a cross‐sectional case study, use of the term and possible policy implications were analyzed. Stakeholder respondents in this study who had experienced difficulty in water negotiations also perceived a higher degree of miscommunication in their negotiations. The most important finding presented here suggests that clarity of language and transparent discussion of key value‐representative terms may aid in stakeholder negotiations, and that minority stakeholders may be more aware of values and language differences than their majority counterparts.     

The legal concept of personhood in Colombia: are there biological reasons to change it?]

Nowadays, as a consequence of scientific advances in embryology, genetics and assisted reproduction techniques, the scientific community ask for new laws to establish new parameters to use with these recent discoveries. Discoveries that have changed the legal concept of "person". In many countries this concept is absolutely useless when facing new techniques such as cloning, stem cell research and embryo storage. That is why it is necessary to change its definition to guarantee the right to life and give a better protection to human embryos.     

The Europeanization of financial regulation and supervision on the Baltic–Nordic axis: the perspective of national bureaucracies

ABSTRACT

This article presents a comparative case study about the impact of Europeanization on two types of small North European states after 2008. For our case study countries, this is mainly a process of Europeanization. Our analysis focuses on interpreting the Europeanization process from the perspective of bureaucracies: we attempt to understand financial bureaucracies’ perceptions of, attitudes toward, and reactions to the post-2008 developments in financial regulation and supervision in Sweden, Norway, Estonia, and Latvia. This enables us to reflect on the implementation performance and embeddedness of post-2008 regulatory and supervisory principles in these countries.     

Navigating,challenging, and contesting normative gendered discourses surrounding women’s pornography use

While there exists some empirical research on women’s use of pornography, the manner in which women do, and how they understand their pornographic spectatorship, remains under-examined. Focusing on the narratives of 26 women gained through both focus groups and individual interviews, this research explores how women who use pornography and other sexually explicit materials navigate, reaffirm, challenge, and contest normative gendered boundaries that surround women’s sexuality, sexual pleasure, and women’s pornographic use. While ‘pornography as female degradation’ is the most visible feminist discourse, the findings of this study suggest that the meanings attributed to both the experience of engaging with pornography, as well as with pornographic materials themselves, were far from wholly degrading, and in fact, served to provide pleasure, sexual self-actualization, and even corporeal validation – disrupting normative discourses of desiring and desirable bodies.     

Economic Assistance to Peacebuilding and Reconciliation Community-Based Projects in Northern Ireland and the Border Counties: Challenges,Opportunities and Evolution

The International Fund for Ireland and the European Union (EU) Peace III Fund have provided external economic resources to local community projects in Northern Ireland and the Border region to support intercommunal relations, community development, economic development, peacebuilding and reconciliation. The British and Irish governments, the EU, and the USA see the economic aid as their commitment to support the peace process, nurture the local voluntary sector, and build the peace dividend. The research findings demonstrate that the reality on the ground is more complex. Some believe that the economic assistance has created employment opportunities, built capacity, and localized peacebuilding knowledge. Others are more sceptical and perceive that the aid has created dependency, facilitated a competitive milieu, and has not transformed relationships in a sectarian environment.     

Mediated Communication with Minors in Asylum-seeking Hearings

This study evaluated caseworkers’ information-seekingprompts in interviews with asylum-seeking minors and assessesthe accuracy of the translations provided by interpreters. Twentysix Russian-speaking minors were individually interviewed byone of 10 caseworkers assisted by one of 17 interpreters. Aquantitative analysis examined the type of questions asked andthe accuracy of the corresponding renditions. The actual andtranslated content of the messages were examined using a qualitativeanalysis. The study showed that interviewers relied heavilyon focused questions, which are more likely to elicit inaccurateinformation. When open questions were asked, the interviewerstended to ask narrow ‘directive’ questions ratherthan broader ‘invitations’. The interpreters’renditions of utterances were often inaccurate. Almost halfof the misrepresentations altered the content and one thirdinvolved changes in the type of question asked. This indicatesthat both interviewers and translators clearly need specialtraining to ensure that they serve asylum-seeking minors adequately.     

Translating Justice: The International Organization of Constitutional Courts

What is the international organization of national constitutional courts? This article develops a theoretical framework to analyze this question and tests it empirically with original data of translated opinions. Justices of different nations form an emerging epistemic community, which is congealed due to common practices as well as to competition and selectiveness throughout the judicial career. Opinions translated into English as the lingua franca are pivotal for communication within this epistemic community. Through engaging in a transnational judicial dialogue, and particularly as far as this dialogue concerns legal citations, this community uses international law as a key guide to finding equilibrium solutions at national and international levels. Five sources of international law overwhelmingly dominate. In addition, we find evidence in the collegial game within the different courts for the existence of a transnational epistemic community of Supreme Court justices.